Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing took a firm grip of the Volvo Ocean Race late last night as they won leg five from Auckland to Itajai.

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Ian Walker’s crew crossed the finish line on Brazil’s south east coast just after midnight UAE time (17:00 local time).

Despite being the longest leg (6,776 nautical miles) the racing among the leading pack has been extremely tight all the way through the leg’s 18 days, with the top four crossing the finish line within an hour of each other.

“It’s awesome. We sailed very, very well, it was a very tight finish – it’s been such a monster of a leg,” Walker said upon victory in Brazil following a leg in which they won the IWC 24 hour Speed Record Challenge, chalking up a whopping 550 miles in just a one day period on March 30.

“We were so stoked with the record. After about 8 hours I said to the guys, ‘look, I want to get that, even if it means losing distance in the race, I want to go for it’. That’s what actually got us back in with the leaders.

“But I can’t speak highly enough of everyone in my team. We have 7 out of 8 of our guys drive so no-one has to drive for too long, we get to rotate a lot.

“There were periods in this leg where we didn’t sail well, where we lost distance, but there were long periods where we sailed very well, particularly when it was very breezy down south.”

ADOR were followed home by leg four winners Mapfre in second place and Team Alvimedica in third. Team Brunel were fourth.

The win is ADOR’s second leg triumph and their first since the opening leg from Alicante to Cape Town. It puts them seven points clear of Dongfeng Race Team, who were forced to withdraw from the leg after their mast broke.

Brunel and Mapfre are locked on 18 points each in third place, with Alvimedica a point behind in fourth. Team SCA are a long way back in fifth, around 600nm from Itajai.